Growth drivers of Indian healthcare sector
- Increase in patients population, increasing lifestyle related health issues
- Faster diagnosis leading to early treatment, awareness on preventive healthcare disorders
- Affordable treatment costs
- Thrust on medical tourism
- Improving health insurance penetration
- Increasing disposable income
- Medical insurance and mandatory wellness checks by corporate houses
- Government initiatives and focus on Public Private Partnership (PPP) models
The Indian healthcare sector is ripe for the expansion and significant growth due to the reasons mentioned above. One of the main factors is increase in the space of medical tourism in India. Medical tourism in India is growing at a compounded annual growth rate of over 27 per cent during 2009-2012. Medical tourism market is valued to be worth USD 310 million and is expected to generate USD 2.4 billion by 2013 and is growing at 30 per cent a year.
It has created excellent investments opportunities for the non-resident Indians (NRIs) to provide much needed managerial and financial support. The following sectors have significant opportunities for the investors:
- Hospitals and Infrastructure: There is tremendous demand for tertiary care hospitals and specialty hospitals in India. There is a gap between the availability of the beds and required beds in the hospital in India which has made NRIs to invest in healthcare.
- Health Insurance: The percentage of the Indian population that has been covered under health insurance is unfortunately very insignificant. Though there is increase in number of health care insurance policies over past few years, majority of the population remains without any coverage. Growing size of middle class population in India that spends on healthcare has led to the emergence of health insurance market.
- Technology driven services: Significantly low presence of physicians in rural and semi-urban areas has led to the limited access to proper healthcare facilities for the people living in these areas. Telemedicine is considered to be one of the solutions to this lacuna in accessibility to health care services in rural and semi-urban areas. Growth of IT sector in India which plays crucial role in telemedicine has led to invest in healthcare sector.
Private healthcare is coming forth as one of the fastest growing sectors in India, with chain hospital explorations into various cities (such as metros and tier II cities across the country), private players seeking accreditation and developing new healthcare models in recent days. Further, various states have launched innovative initiatives to attract PPP investments into healthcare space. These Public Private Partnership initiatives may help in improving the infrastructure and healthcare provision in the country for the needs raised.
Future of healthcare in India
There is a huge investment opportunities here for India, to maximise the use of diagnostics within the healthcare environment. We have got very good high-end labs, which are equivalent to any country around the world, said Mr Lance Little, Chairman and Managing Director, Roche Diagnostics India and South Asia.
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